1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to the field of vehicle energy management. In particular, to a system and method for vehicle energy management.
2. Related Art
Many mechanisms have been developed to help optimize energy consumption in vehicles. However, some aspects of vehicle energy consumption continue to be significantly affected by driver related factors such as driving style (e.g heavy acceleration and sudden braking). Drivers sometimes choose less than optimal modes of operation of the vehicle based on a lack of information about the driving context (e.g. up coming traffic congestion and road topology ahead).
Existing systems that give fuel economy indications or driver suggestions are typically based on past and current vehicle state and/or operating conditions. For example, for naturally aspirated internal combustion engines the intake manifold vacuum can be used to infer efficient engine operation and can be displayed on a gauge. Also, instantaneous or average fuel consumption can be computed and displayed. In hybrid and electric vehicles instantaneous energy consumption can be displayed. These solutions are limited in their beneficial impact due to being retrospective in nature—that is, being based on past and current vehicle state and/or operating conditions.